Glorious Mosaic Dept. Young Japanese in Blackface Invade Downtown

Talk story about the Japanese version of hip-hop culture... Writer describes the scene at the Pink Tea Cup, a West Village soul-food restaurant... All six of the young Japanese had dark tans, and several of them wore a deep-brown makeup base that made their faces look darker than those of any of the Pink Tea Cup’s black patrons that afternoon... Carmen Grau, who is the manager of Bar Odeon, says, “Sometimes those new Japanese kids come in here, and I’m like, Wait a minute. Their Afros are bigger than mine!” Sue Kwon, a Korean-American photographer who shoots black hip-hop stars for magazines such as The Source, says, “At first, I thought it was racist, horrible. Then, when I went to Japan, I got over it. That suntan thing? It’s not minstrel time to them. It’s an homage thing. They really want to be what they think America is, which is hip-hop culture.” Writer interviews Mami Shirakawa, host of Black Entertainment Television’s “Rap City Japan”...